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About Celje

Celje is the third largest city in Slovenia. Exhibiting the typical characteristics of a Central European city, it is the regional center of Lower Styria and the administrative seat of the municipality of the same name - the Urban Municipality of Celje (Mestna občina Celje). Celje is located under Upper Celje Castle (407 m) at the confluence of the Savinja (German: Sann), Ložnica, and Voglajna (with its tributary Hudinja) rivers in the lowest part of the Savinja Valley. It is 241 m above mean sea level (MSL).




History

The first urban settlement in the area of Celje appeared during the Hallstatt era. The settlement was known in the Celtic times as Kelea; Celts coined money in the region.

The city was razed by Slavic tribes during the Migration period of the 5th and 6th century, but was rebuilt in the Early Middle Ages. The first mention of Celje in the Middle Ages was under the name of Cylie in Admont's Chronicle, which was written between 1122 and 1137.

At the end of the 19th century and in the early 1900s, Celje was a strong center of German nationalism against Slovenes. The 1910 census showed an 66.8% German population. A symbol of this was the German Cultural Center(German: Deutsches Haus), built in 1906 and opened on May 15, 1907, today the Celje Hall (Slovene: Celjski dom). Even the centuries-old German name of the town, Cilli, sounded no longer German enough to German ears so that the form Celle was preferred by many. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica listed the town, which in 1900 had 6,743 and in 1924 had 7,750 citizens, under the German name Cilli. The National Hall (Narodni dom), which hosts the seat of a township today, was built in 1896. The first telephone in the city was installed in 1902 and the city received electric power in 1913.

Celje became part of independent Slovenia after the Ten-Day War in 1991. On April 7, 2006, Celje became the seat of a new Diocese of Celje, created by Pope Benedict XVI within the Archdiocese of Maribor. The town's tourist sights include a Minorite monastery founded in 1241 and a palace from the 16th century.
Walking through Celje.
Panoramic view of Celje.
Source: Wikipedia